The present invention relates to 8-transistor SRAM cell designs and, more particularly, relates to an 8-transistor SRAM cell design having outer pass-gate diodes to enable column select functionality.
A static random access memory (SRAM) is a significant memory device due to its high speed, low power consumption and simple operation. Unlike a dynamic random access memory (DRAM) cell, the SRAM does not need to regularly refresh the stored data as SRAM uses bistable latching circuitry to store each bit.
As variability concerns mount in future complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technologies, SRAM cell stability, which depends on delicately balanced transistor characteristics, becomes a significant concern.
In traditional 6-transistor SRAM, cells must be both stable during a read event and writeable during a write event. Ignoring redundancy, such functionality must be preserved for each cell under worst-case variation. For cell stability during a read, it is desirable to strengthen the storage inverters and weaken the pass-gates. The opposite is desired for cell writeability: a weak storage inverter and strong pass-gates. This delicate balance of transistor strength ratios can be severely impacted by device variations, which dramatically degrade stability and write margins, especially in scaled technologies.
In a 6-transistor SRAM cell, variability tolerance is compromised by the conflicting needs of cell read stability and writeability. Because the same pass-gate devices are used to both read and write the cell, it is inevitable that the two conditions cannot be simultaneously optimized.
In an 8-transistor SRAM cell, two transistors are added to create a disturb-free read mechanism. Since read and write are controlled by separate devices within the cell, the two are entirely decoupled—a level that 6-transistor SRAM cells can never reach. This widens the cell optimization space to achieve sufficient stability and writeability margins.
While the 8-transistor cell solves read stability issues, a similar problem arises during a write operation if column select functionality (also known as half-select, partial write, or masked write) is desired. In such a scenario, the write word line is activated, but it is desired that only some of the bits tied to this write word line are written. This is a common technique used in 6-transistor SRAM arrays to facilitate bit interleaving and array floorplanning and is achieved by appropriately biasing the bit lines in each column. Those bits that are not to be written experience a bias comparable to a read disturb. In 8-transistor SRAM, operating the memory in such a fashion would unintentionally write other bits in other columns due to the strong pass-gates employed. In existing 8-transistor SRAM designs, column select functionality is thus prohibited.